Real-time Web development generally refers to the making and testing of software applications that consume or receive Web data and Web services as they become available, rather than requiring a user or the software to check a source periodically for updates. Real-time Web-services and data may include social feed (such as Twitter), Web chat services, live charts, on-screen dashboards, activity streams, and real-time Web analytics. Real-time Web services and data may also include functions performed by enterprise back-office operations, such CRM/ERP, OSSm, among others. A Web application or “Web App” is any application software that runs in a Web browser or is created in a browser-supported programming language (such as the combination of JavaScript, HTML and CSS) and relies on a common Web API to render the application.
One type of such Web application is a Mashup, which generally is a Web page or Web application that uses content from more than one source to create a new service displayed in a graphical user interface. Mashup may be employed for business applications, consumer applications, and industrial applications. A Mashup may use application programming interfaces (APIs) of different vendors to use their site's content as well as the site's aggregated and reused content.
Heterogeneous development generally refers to using hardware and software from different vendors. Because of available selections of competing standards and platforms offered by various vendors, application developers typically have to test a given application using multiple devices operating a number of competing platforms and standards. These tests may be in relation to the operating systems, the communication networks, and/or the data storage.
Testing across multiple platforms is still performed for the most part, manually. For example, in order to test the interactions of a Web application across various types of devices in a heterogeneous environment, an application developer has to individually update the client-side Web application on each of the devices.
Web development and application-development tools have been around for some time. Application libraries and toolkits have been developed that enable application developers to easily integrate data and functions. Nevertheless, there is a still a need for better tools to make application development more efficient and quick. There additionally exists a need for a solution that allows for testing code of new classes of Web objects that employ Real-time data and services.